Broadcast "TENDER BUTTONS" RATING: 2 EARS...

November 18, 2005|By JOSHUA KLEIN, REDEYE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR.

Broadcast

"TENDER BUTTONS"

RATING: 2 EARS

Broadcast began as a Stereolab ripoff, borrowing from the same backroads of obscure psychedelic, progressive and experimental music before moving on to even weirder calliope soundscapes. "Tender Buttons" may be the group's most radical shift yet, no doubt because Broadcast was reduced from a group to the duo of singer Trish Keenan and James Cargill. The results are simultaneous stranger and more stripped down, with dinky drum machines blipping beneath "Black Cat," "America's Boy" and "Goodbye Girls." Songs such as these find an uneasy balance between the minimalist yet noisy backdrops and Keenan's cool coo.